


And They Call It Horsey Love

by LaurelNymph



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Universe, Ereri Week, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:59:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurelNymph/pseuds/LaurelNymph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean describes it best: "They couldn't have a baby of their own so their horses had to do it for them!" </p><p>Or, Eren's horse gets a crush on Levi's horse. Will their horses lead Eren to finally act on his feelings? With a little help from Squad Levi, maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And They Call It Horsey Love

“All right, we’re done training for today.”

As soon as Captain Levi said that, a torrent of sound came down. Whirring of the 3DMG as its owner scaled back to the ground, panting for breath, and pained groans.

“Thank the walls—” Jean gasped.

“FINALLY!” Sasha shrieked, detaching her 3DMG hooks from the tree she’d been hanging from then flopped dramatically to the ground.

Connie yelped, “I thought we’d never finish!”

Armin was panting hard, hands on his knees, but said nothing. Christa—no, Historia— gulped water from her canteen.

Only Mikasa and Eren stayed standing quietly. Mikasa, because of her inhuman strength, and Eren because he’d been on Squad Levi the longest. Through the haze of guilt and fury at how the Female Titan incident went down, there was a glimmer of pride mixed in at the realization that Captain Levi’s training didn’t wear him out the same way it used to back when the squad included Petra and the others. Sasha, Connie, Jean, Armin, and Historia had a lot to get used to. Not just the grueling training and impeccable skills Captain Levi needed from his squad, but also their sudden isolation in the cabin. The grim air of betrayal didn’t help.

Captain Levi gave them a few moments to rest before announcing, “Get your horses, we’re going back to the cabin.”

The squad pulled themselves together despite their aching muscles and headed back through the forest. The rest of the squad managed to recover and between Jean, Connie, and Sasha, the mood felt lively again as they approached the clearing where they’d left their horses tied up. That mood died a quick and horrible death when they were met with the awkward sight of Eren’s stallion enthusiastically mounting Captain Levi’s mare.

Eren felt his jaw drop at the same time as his face erupted in a powerful blush. Of all the mares on the squad, it had to be _Captain Levi’s_. Everyone knew how much he loved that horse.

“Oh my god,” Connie choked out.

“My precious girl,” Captain Levi said in a horror-stricken voice.

The horses simply ignored them and continued what they were doing.

Eren snapped out of the awkward-induced paralysis gripping his body long enough to shout, “I’m so sorry Captain! I didn’t mean for my horse to—”

He was cut off by Jean’s obnoxious laughter.

“This is too funny!” Jean shrieked, slapping his knee. “It’s bad enough that Eren acts like the Captain’s little housewife, now even his horse has a crush on Captain’s horse!”

Eren felt his blood boil as the others started snickering too. This wasn’t funny!

“Shut up you jackass!” he shouted. His arm hurt where Mikasa was holding him back.

“Shut up the both of you,” Captain Levi said sharply. “They’re done, let’s just go.”

True enough, when they turned around Eren’s stallion was eating grass innocently, as if he hadn’t just been mating with his superior officer’s horse. Eren gathered up his horse’s reins (broken, no wonder he’d escaped) and climbed up into his saddle. The rest of the squad mounted their horses and as the group prepared to head toward the cabin, Captain Levi turned around in his saddle.

“Oh, Jean? When we get back, chop firewood. We might as well plan ahead, do a month’s supply.”

Jean groaned loudly. At least that covered up the disappointed sound Eren made. Captain Levi was pissed, obviously about his horse and, if the punishment was anything to go by, at Jean for saying what he’d said. The Captain had probably been disgusted that Jean had dared to joke that Eren had feelings for him.

If he was that disgusted at Jean’s joking, then there was no way he could ever tell the Captain the truth.

* * *

Dinner was almost over by the time Jean finished chopping wood. He stumbled into the kitchen sweaty and red-faced. To Eren’s enormous pleasure, it looked like he was straining to lift his tired arms high enough to get food in his mouth.

 _Serves him right_ Eren thought. After he had the balls to make fun of Eren and Captain Levi. Not to mention almost blow his secret crush. Eren stabbed another bite of potato with his fork. Fuck Jean.

Shortly after the horseface finished eating, Historia and Connie started to clean up and the other members of the new Squad Levi split off. Once they were alone and Eren had started water boiling for tea, he felt brave enough to say, "Uh, Captain? I'm sorry about what my horse did earlier."

To his surprise, Captain Levi replied, "You don't have to be sorry that your horse did what horses do.”

What a relief he wasn’t mad! Eren felt more cheerful when he poured the hot water into a mug. Until the Captain continued, “What I want to know is how the hell you managed to do such a shitty job of tying him up that he managed to escape and practically incapacitate _my_ horse."

"I tied him up like I always do. I think his reins broke," Eren explained before adding tea leaves to the hot water. He’d never escaped before.

The Captain accepted his tea with a muttered “thank you Eren” and carefully added honey. After taking a sip, he said, "Well if you're lucky my mare won't get pregnant. I don't want to have to get a new horse for missions."

"You can still ride a pregnant mare," a third voice chimed in. The two men looked over toward the pantry where the voice came from. Sasha was standing there, hiding her hands behind her back. The bag hanging over her shoulder made the situation look even more suspicious.

"What are you doing by the pantry there Sasha?" Captain Levi asked, far too casually.

Sasha must have sensed the danger she was in, because she replied, "I'm not sneaking food for later."

Captain Levi raised an eyebrow.

"See that you don't or you'll spend the night chopping wood like that one out there," he said, jerking a thumb toward the window where Jean was stacking the wood he'd chopped before dinner. "Now the two of you get yourselves to bed, we have more training to do tomorrow."

"That's _why_ I need the extra food," Sasha muttered on her way out.

"Goodnight Captain!" Eren said even though he knew Captain Levi would spend his sleepless nights cleaning like always. He relished the way the Captain said goodnight back. So the Captain couldn't return his feelings, at least Eren got to stay close by him. He had that, at least.

Sasha giggled when they left the kitchen and took one look at Eren’s goofy smile. If it wouldn’t have destroyed his knuckles for the hours it would take them to heal, Eren would have wanted to punch a wall. Why did everyone have to think this situation was so goddamned funny?

His glare must have been obvious, even in the dim hall light because Sasha added, “With this whole horse thing he’s sulking like a father who discovered his daughter has a beau! Ya don’t think it’s a little bit cute, Eren?”

“Of course not, the Captain’s not _cute_ ,” Eren blustered. “Don’t be _weird_ , Sasha.”

“All right,” Sasha said. She opened the door to the girls’ room and said, “Well, good night Eren.”

“Night, Sasha,” he replied before opening the door to the other bedroom in the house. The five beds crammed in the room made it hard to move around and find his. At least Jean was still outside and Connie was snickering too hard to make any stupid comments. Eren flipped him off before climbing into his own bed. He managed to go to sleep and try to forget what he’d seen that day.

* * *

Squad Levi was riding—minus one member—up to the castle in Sina. The coronation was set to start in a while. Then the Survey Corps would have control over the government with their former squad mate Historia in power.

As they tied up their horses, Eren’s stallion ignored the pull on his new reins to stand next to Levi's mare. Eren felt his face burning again as his squad mates snickered at his horse's attempts to get close to Captain Levi's horse. Eren's stallion nuzzled the other horse, who whinnied back cheerfully.

Captain Levi's face was unreadable as their horses tried to get closer.

"Sorry!" Eren repeated and pulled harder on the reins. His stallion refused to budge. Suddenly a hand came down on his wrist, stopping him from pulling. Eren was so irritated with the situation he couldn't even enjoy the feeling of the Captain holding his wrist, practically holding his hand.

"Don’t hurt your horse, he won’t listen if he doesn’t respect you," Captain Levi said when Eren met his eyes. "It doesn’t matter anyway. She hasn't gone into heat since the day you lost control of your beast. I think it's too late to worry about preventing a foal."

The silence that followed was broken by Sasha crying out, "Yay! We're gonna have a foal! I volunteer to train it to be a good hunting horse!"

"That sounds cute," Armin said.

"Eren’s and Captain's horses are both so pretty, they'll have a good foal," Connie agreed.

"They couldn't have a baby of their own so their horses had to do it for them!" Jean howled before dissolving into laughter.

Eren wished he had something in his hands he could throw to accompany his shout of, “Shut _up_ Jean, you fucking loser!”

Judging by the irritated look on the Captain’s face, he wanted the same thing. Too bad they weren’t living in the cabin anymore and there was no way the Captain could threaten Jean with more wood chopping.

“Why don’t you make me?” Jean taunted. That was it, he was asking to be punched in the face. No one could fault Eren for leaping off his horse and storming toward Jean, who looked a little nervous sitting on top of his horse.

“I could stomp you!” Jean threatened, clutching his reins hard. “I’ve got the high ground!”

“You’ll have to come down sometime for some feed, Horseface!” Eren insisted before yanking on Jean’s boot. Jean slid halfway down his saddle, shouted something, and kicked Eren in the face as he fell off his horse. Eren managed to get in a few punches (take a few too) before Captain Levi grabbed his scruff and threw him off Jean.

“Cut it out you animals!” the Captain snapped. Great, now Jean had gone and gotten the Captain mad at Eren. He glared at Jean, who was smiling for some reason. What a dickhead, Eren had been _clearly_ winning that fight. He out to be relieved Captain Levi broke up the fight before he got hurt!

"That's a much better look on your face," Jean said, a charming smile spreading across his own face. "I was tired of seeing you look so mopey."

Eren was taken aback.

“Did you get brain damage fighting off Ackerman?” he asked. There _had_ been a lot of explosions down in the cave. Because this didn’t make sense. Jean was never _nice_. Especially not to him. Eren wasn’t nice to Jean either. And the Walls were fifty meters high, that was just part of life.

“If the two of you are done eye-fucking each other, we have a coronation to go to,” Captain Levi reminded them gruffly, clearly irritated with them. Splotches of red bloomed in Jean’s face.

“I am _not_ eye-fucking him!” he insisted. Eren agreed. If he could to eye-fuck anyone, he would hands down choose the Captain not Jean’s disgusting self. Of course, he couldn’t say that. It was true, though. In fact, he dreamed about it often.

* * *

The Survey Corps became a whirlwind of activity then. A whirlwind so busy the entirety of Squad Levi managed to forget to joke about Captain Levi and Eren’s “love child”. That was a hidden bonus to finally making it to the basement: not only could they now explore the outside world _and_ rebuild Wall Maria, but everyone was too busy to remember Captain Levi’s mare’s potential pregnancy. In fact, Eren assumed he was in the clear all the way clear to the next Trainee Corps graduation.

“It’s amazing how many new recruits we have,” Armin said, looking over the line of fresh-faced soldiers eagerly entering the Survey Corps headquarters, eyes blown wide, mouths agape in wonder.

After taking back Wall Maria, Hange had taken up the mantle of Commander and, maybe due to the fact that their recruitment speech was less about how likely you were to die and more about all the wonderful things there were waiting to be discovered beyond the walls, they’d gotten a record number of Trainee Corps members choosing the Survey Corps.

“I hope we didn’t look that stupidly optimistic when we joined,” Jean groaned. The new recruits let out a series of excited shrieks as they were presented with their new uniforms bearing the wings of freedom. “ _Please_ tell me we didn’t look that stupid. I mean, look at that one’s _face!_ ”

“Maybe you did, but not us,” Sasha replied. She was treated to a great view of Jean’s middle finger.

“I can’t believe it’s been a year!” Connie said. “Hey, since it’s been a year isn’t it almost time for Captain Levi and Eren’s love child to be born? It’s been eleven months.”

_Fuck_

“Are you guys really not sick of that joke yet?” Eren snapped from the loft. Heat crept up into his face. Now he was getting red and sweaty for a whole new reason. He threw another pitchfork full of hay down into the empty stall below him. “It’s been a year!”

Apparently not, because Jean howled, “Eren must be the woman in that relationship, look at him! He’s nesting! Getting the stable ready for his precious foal!”

“We don’t even know for sure if she’s pregnant,” a voice came from behind them. Each and every member of Squad Levi turned around slowly, except for Eren up in the hayloft. Of course the Captain was standing there, a look of utter contempt for the squad on his face. Eren knew it had been a bad idea to stop working to gawk at the new recruits. But did anyone listen to the most senior member of the squad?

Of course not. At least he wasn’t in the line of fire since he’d kept working.

“Just because we’re getting new recruits doesn’t mean you lot get to slack off,” Captain Levi insisted. “Aren’t you supposed to be cleaning the stables?”

“…We’re on break,” Mikasa said, the only slacker brave enough to speak up.

“Well break’s over, get back to work.”

The squad drifted back into the stables. Connie stopped next to the Captain and said, “You know Captain, there _is_ a way to tell if your horse is pregnant! The womb changes shape, so if you touch it, it feels different!”

“And how do you know this?” Captain Levi asked.

“My family raised horses.”

One eyebrow raised in anticipated disgust, the Captain asked, “How do you even touch the womb?”

“You can feel it through the rectum. That’s what my dad used to say, anyway.”

"I am _not_ sticking my hand up my horse's ass just to see if she's pregnant,” Levi said with a deep shudder. “I'd rather wait and see if a foal plops out."

That ended up being a good strategy because not even two days later, Eren was washing the dinner dishes with the new recruits, instructing them carefully on just how clean they needed to be, when the Captain walked into the kitchen. The new recruits gaped and whispered excitedly.

“Eren.”

“Yes Captain?”

“Come to the stables with me,” he said before walking out of the room.

The new recruits gaped harder, if that was even possible, as Eren dried off his hands. He followed the Captain’s brisk pace out to the stables. He could barely see without the light from the Captain’s lantern. Eren wondered if he’d done an unsatisfactory job cleaning the stable. But the Captain rarely critiqued his cleaning anymore. He’d even said that Eren was the best on the squad!

“Captain, why are we here?” Eren asked as they entered the door of the stable.

“I thought you’d like to see the baby,” Captain Levi replied.

Eren didn’t get it until he heard Connie pipe up, “Congratulations, Captain, Eren. You have a beautiful daughter!”

There was no time for an insult because Eren looked over into the stall and immediately melted into a puddle of goo. In the middle of Captain Levi’s mare’s stall she was lying there on her side with her new baby. She was a beautiful bay foal. Captain Levi’s mare licked her baby enthusiastically, trying to tame the wild mane poking every which way. Her ears were adorably large and Eren’s heart was gone, overtaken by how sweet the scene was.

“She’s so cute,” Eren said, leaning against the door to the stall so that he could peer in on the foal. The railing jolted as Captain Levi leaned against it. Eren froze; the only part of him that could feel was his arm where Captain Levi’s shoulder was brushing up against him. Oh god. He was actually touching the Captain! Eren could see Connie’s jaw drop.

“We did well, didn’t we?” Captain Levi said, looking at their foal with a gentle look on his eyes. Eren was pretty sure he wasn’t being sarcastic, not when he turned that same face toward Eren. In his peripheral vision he saw Connie giving him a thumbs-up and a wink. Eren felt his heart squeeze with hope for the future with Captain Levi. Squad Levi may have teased the hell out of him for this whole horse incident, but in the end Eren got the feeling it had led them down a path where one day Captain Levi might allow the gap between their hands on the railing to close.

“We did do well!”


End file.
